In his fourth blog, Ethan continues to write about experiences from his Business Officer Apprenticeship at Leeds East Academy:

​

Perseverance is an essential attribute that helps one become successful. Whether in the many small tasks or the long extensive projects, an individual seems to perform better as they persevere. Reviewing the past couple of weeks I can see how the quality of perseverance has helped me in my college studies and in the workplace.

​

First, I want to clarify that perseverance is more than just “sticking it out” because you don’t enjoy something. Perseverance is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as, “Persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” My experiences have been that the joy of achieving something is far greater than the struggle of doing it.

​

This week I finished the classes for the first module of my accounting studies. However, there were times that I struggled to fully understand the topics, particularly in the last class of the course which focused on cash payments and cash receipts. Despite my limited knowledge, I patiently listened to my tutor who, after explaining a second time, helped me to recognise that in a cash receipts book, cash is received and comes into the bank, and the debit entry is in the bank account. Similarly, in a cash payments book, cash is paid out of the bank, and the bank account is credited. Though small, completing the first unit of the course has increased my confidence and understanding in the basics of accounting.

​

"My experiences have been that the joy of achieving something is far greater than the struggle of doing it."

​

Often, our self-doubt and negativism can be a detriment to achieving a goal. Such was my feeling on Tuesday morning. After a short discussion with a colleague, I was given the positivity to persevere. I left work on Tuesday feeling joyful because of the number of small successes I had that day. These successes included: collating all invoices on that week’s pay-listing; inputting all purchase orders; and compiling a file of all Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).

​

As we persevere through each day, it is incredible to see our successes unfold. I achieved a lot last week and I am ready to continue achieving personal and professional goals.